Creation vs. Evolution and this Adam and Eve business?

stmarysfaithformation

2 years ago

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Really this is a three for one deal but as these questions are usually asked right after each other so it is easier to answer them together.

Creation and Evolution—Which is true? The answer is BOTH! That probably surprises some of you as people are so outspoken on either side about how they could never fit together. But when one reads the Creation story and truly studies it they begin to wonder about the relationship between time and God. Does God have 24 hours in a day or did the writers of the Bible give us the concept of “days” as a way to understand that creation took place over a period of time? The Truth is God exists outside of time, therefore one day to God could be 1 million years or 1 millisecond, we simply do not know. With this mindset, one can see how the timetable of Evolution can easily fit into the creation story in the Bible.

Another way to look at it is from an Evolution standpoint. You can trace evolution back all the way until you have one atom that’s existence cannot be explained. It didn’t evolve from anything and it wasn’t a product of a bang in the universe. The only explanation is that God created it.

So why do we have the creation story anyway? The story of creation gives us a way to understand two main principles about God: He alone is the one true God and secondly God created everything. Therefore the only way to completely understand how creation happened is to combine each of the stories.

Adam and Eve- Where do they fit? When one puts the creation and evolution theories together to understand how the world was really created the story of Adam and Eve does not seem to fit. So why would they be in the Bible?? This is where we need to remember that the Bible is a library of different types of books ranging from history to myths and everything in-between. The Creation story falls into the myth category: stories that are given to us in order to teach a lesson. So just like we should not take the creation story as a scientific plan for creation, we should not read Adam and Eve as a history story but rather look for the lesson in the story.

Where did the stories originate if they are not to be read as historical facts or scientific? The writers of the Bible got the story of Adam and Eve and creation from when they were in exile in a country that believed in multiple gods. The story was taken from that religion but used and edited by the writers of the Bible to teach that God alone is the creator and how sin entered the world.

Quick Response= Did creation happen in 7 days? Probably not. Could Adam and Eve have existed? Maybe. The key to these stories are not what they tell us scientifically or historically but rather what they tell us about the Fundamental Truths of our Faith.